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Another method of division is possible: substances may be
classed as hot-dry, dry-cold, cold-moist, or however we choose to
make the coupling. We may then proceed to the combination and
blending of these couples, either halting at that point and going
no further than the compound, or else subdividing by habitation-
on the earth, in the earth- or by form and by the differences
exhibited by living beings, not qua living, but in their bodies
viewed as instruments of life.
Differentiation by form or shape is no more out of place than a
division based on qualities- heat, cold and the like. If it be
objected that qualities go to make bodies what they are, then, we
reply, so do blendings, colours, shapes. Since our discussion is
concerned with Sensible Substance, it is not strange that it
should turn upon distinctions related to sense-perception: this
Substance is not Being pure and simple, but the Sensible Being
which we call the Universe.
We have remarked that its apparent subsistence is in fact an
assemblage of Sensibles, their existence guaranteed to us by
sense-perception. But since their combination is unlimited, our
division must be guided by the Form-Ideas of living beings, as
for example the Form-Idea of Man implanted in Body; the
particular Form acts as a qualification of Body, but there is
nothing unreasonable in using qualities as a basis of division.
We may be told that we have distinguished between simple and
composite bodies, even ranking them as opposites. But our
distinction, we reply, was between material and organic bodies
and raised no question of the composite. In fact, there exists no
means of opposing the composite to the simple; it is necessary to
determine the simples in the first stage of division, and then,
combining them on the basis of a distinct underlying principle,
to differentiate the composites in virtue of their places and
shapes, distinguishing for example the heavenly from the earthly.
These observations will suffice for the Being [Substance], or
rather the Becoming, which obtains in the Sensible realm.
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